Author Mark Powell Speaks to High Country Writers

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Mark Powell will be the featured speaker at the regular meeting of the High Country Writers at the Watauga County Public Library on Thursday, July 12, 2018, at 10:00 am. The program is free and open to the public.

Powell, an assistant professor teaching creative writing and contemporary fiction at ASU, is an award-winning novelist who was called the "best Appalachian novelist of his generation" by New York Times bestselling author Ron Rash and a writer "on the verge of greatness" by Pat Conroy. He is the author of five novels, including his most recent, Small Treasons from Simon & Schuster. His novel Blood Kin won the Peter Taylor Prize for the Novel. The Sheltering (with an introduction by Pat Conroy) won the bronze medal for both the Independent Publishers Award and the Florida Book Awards. In 2009 he received the Chaffin Award for contributions to Appalachian literature.

Powell has moved Southern fiction right into this morning’s headlines. He is a graduate of The Citadel, although he never joined the military, and a graduate of The Yale School of Divinity, although he did not become a clergyman. In Small Treasons he brings his diverse education to bear, both in his convincing descriptions of drone piloting and intelligence gathering and even more in his depiction of the corrosive effects of sin and guilt on the human psyche.

Powell is writing his sixth novel. He draws much inspiration for his novels from his real life experiences. “I think all writers do,” Powell said. “All writers, whether they admit it or not; it’s the world they experience filtered through. It may not be consciously the world in which you live, but certainly it seeps into it. Writing is a response, a way to make sense of your life.”

High Country Writers has been “energizing writers since 1995.” Regular meetings are at the Watauga County Public Library on the second and fourth Thursdays of most months from 10 am to noon, and speakers’ presentations are co-sponsored by the library. HCW members present writing / publishing skills workshops from 10 am to noon the first Thursday of most months, partnering with Watauga County Arts Council to offer them at Art Space. Guests are welcome. Membership is $15 annually.